1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a remote controller that remotely controls objects such as air-conditioning apparatuses.
2. Related Art
Remote controllers are used to remotely control objects to be controlled, such as air-conditioning apparatuses, television receivers, and main interphone units. To reduce power consumption while the remote controller is in an input standby state, a following technology has been proposed (refer to JP-A-2005-348333). In this technology, a latching relay enters a startup state when a user presses an operating button on the remote controller. Up to this point, power supply to each circuit in the remote controller is stopped. However, when the operating button is pressed and the latching relay enters the startup state, power supply to each circuit is started. In addition, due to recent demands for improved design, compactness, reduced manufacturing costs, and the like, a capacitance-type touch panel or the like is sometimes used as an operation input section of the remote controller.
In a configuration in which the operation input section of the remote controller is configured by a touch panel as described above, and the remote controller is in a low power consumption state until the user makes contact with (touches) the operation input section, power is supplied at all times to a circuit that detects the contact made on the operation input section.
In a configuration such as this, to improve detection accuracy of the contact made on the operation input section, a sensor may be used as the circuit that detects the contact. This sensor consumes a significant amount of power due to high sensitivity (measurement resolution). However, in this instance, a problem occurs in that power consumption during the standby state of the remote controller increases.
This problem is also common to a configuration in which the operation input section is configured by an operating button. In addition, in conventional remote controllers, reduced size of the remote controller, reduced costs, improved reliability, resource conservation, easier manufacturing, improved usability, and the like are desired.